OF WOLVES AND MEN
Morning came, and with it the bustles and shouts of an opening-day circus. Enric rose from the pen floor, stretched, and yawned until his ears drew back. Although he'd slept very little the night before, a few quick shakes brought him to alertness. He was still in the wolf pen, still in wolf shape, and the other carnies would be coming at any minute. Quickly he shifted form -- something he'd plenty of practice with in the last few hours -- and scrambled out of the cage, re-locking the door just as Mil entered the tent.
Enric smelled the man before he saw him, and hurried to the front, dusting himself off as he came.
"Morning," the trainer grunted. He looked Enric up and down with mild distaste. "Animals do all right for you, then?"
"Just fine," Enric assured him.
"Good." Mil started toward the wolf pen, Enric trailing behind, suppressing a grin.
As their trainer approached, Wind and Whisper looked up at him gravely, but Enric they acknowledged with a simple flick of the ears. His first lesson the night before had been the importance of keeping his secret.
Mil squatted down to scratch the wolves behind the ears. "Hey, girl, hey boy," he murmured. "You miss me?"
All gentleness evaporated the moment he turned to Enric. "All right, then, back to work." His voice was flat, but his intentions couldn't have been clearer if he'd pissed on the bars. Mil had just reclaimed his territory.
Enric nodded without speaking, letting his secret keep his temper for him. You think you're their master? he laughed inwardly at the trainer. Then he turned his back and walked away.
Birimi was quite a large town. In fact, it had outgrown its own borders some fifty years before. Houses spilled over the walls of the city proper and on nearly a kilometer beyond, thinning out only just beyond the midway field. Enric had seen all this yesterday, climbing a low hill during one of his breaks from setting up pens, so the variety of circus visitors came as no surprise. Many of the Birimans were farmer stock, short and ruddy with wide, callused hands. But a second class of citizen (who no doubt considered themselves the farmers' betters) dressed in bright silk finery and held themselves apart with an air of faint suspicion. Worst of all were the upper class youth -- little more than hoodlums playing dress-up, as far as Enric could tell. Guarding the primate pens as the Birimans filed by, he found himself issuing three times as many warnings to the townie kids as their country cousins.
"Gahh," one young punk snorted as Enric motioned him to step away from the cage, "this isn't any fun. I thought we were paying to get into the girlie tent."
"There is no 'girlie tent,'" Enric answered coldly, but the boy had already turned aside. Clapping his cohorts on the back, he wandered off to harass another animal, while Enric did his best to soothe the monkeys. He wondered how Wind and Whisper were coping with the intrusions.
Vaesha had been true to her word, and at dusk Loren relieved Enric to attend the evening's performance. Stepping out of the zoo tent for only the third time that day, he drew a deep breath, relishing the clean, fresh air. "Animal tender" was hardly the ideal job for a person with a nose like his. Then again, he could leave anytime he wished -- and he hadn't, yet. I'll give it a couple more days, at least, Enric thought, and slipped into the big top just in time for the opening act. The houselights dimmed (nice touch, Enric thought, wondering how they accomplished it) as he found a bare patch of ground by the foot of a bleacher. Then came a rumble of drums and a blare of horns, and Ilarro strode from the shadows in full gypsy/Viking regalia.
The ringmaster raised one hand with a flourish, and the music crashed to a halt. "Ladies and gentlemen," she began, her bright voice ringing to the rafters, "it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to Lady Ilarro's Traveling Band of Dreams." This was the first time Enric had heard the full name of the circus, and it gave him a pleasant jolt. He smiled and settled further into the grass.
Ilarro went on to describe the evening's entertainment, then gave way to a clown parade which reduced the local tots to shrieking laughter. Next came the animal acts, much more interesting from Enric's point of view, although he'd seen some of it the night before. Monkeys swung from lions' tails and put their heads in the big cats' mouths, while Wind and Whisper turned cartwheels on the elephant's back. Even the camels, notoriously difficult animals in R1, danced and "sang" in time to the music. The werewolf hardly knew whether to laugh or cringe.
Wix and Thowan made their appearance near the end of the evening, presenting one of the strangest, most compelling strength routines Enric had ever seen. A single drum rolled deep and slow as Wix knelt before his partner and the two locked hands. Then Thowan leaned forward, pressing into a handstand above Wix's head. The audience murmured and began to clap, but the strongmen had only begun. From there, Wix slowly rose to a standing position; then the two released one set of hands.
Cheers rose in the darkness, but still the drum beat on. The strongmen moved with a slow, ponderous grace, their faces calm as monks'. They balanced one-handed and two-handed; on knees, shoulders, elbows -- at one point, even a neck. Enric found himself wincing in sympathy, but he couldn't take his eyes off the spectacle.
The performance ended with Thowan executing a one-handed handstand atop Wix's head. Then the crowd, which had long since forgotten to applaud, burst into full-throated cheers. Enric's was among the loudest. How could anything top a performance like this?
Bowing, the strongmen left the ring and the tent grew black as pitch. Murmurs rose as an eerie purple fog crept into the ring and lapped the edges of the bleachers. On the ground, Enric stretched out a hand and felt a clammy tendril curl around his finger. He shook it off with a shudder.
The fog continued to build, climbing the trapeze posts and trickling out along the high wire, then looping down again in slimy ropes. Edgy, atonal music bloomed from the orchestra pit, and a black-shrouded figured materialized from the gloom: Cantonicus. The magician threw back his hood, revealing a skull-like face as ancient as the dreamworld itself. He raked the crowd with his fierce black eyes, then slowly lifted his hands.
Now the fog began to seethe. Half-formed shapes rose and fell from the ooze, then rose again to take on the aspect of serpents, spiders, lizards, dragons. Bursts of crimson flared through gloom, illuminating gaping jaws and fiery eyes. Monsters writhed upward and outward, seeming to menace the folk in the stands. A few even snapped at outstretched hands.
The magician, seemingly locked in his own private pain, noticed none of it. His expression shifted from anger to anguish to utter desolation, and with each change, the phantom creatures grew. The music swelled, the forms writhed, and the spectacle became almost too painful to watch.
But suddenly everything changed. Out from the wings crept a second figure, tiny and clad in gauzy flower hues. Bright string notes kept pace as she tiptoed across the ring, menaced by fog-phantoms at every step. The magician seemed unaware of her presence until a petal-pale hand reached his sleeve. Horns blared as he whirled to face the interloper, who cowered now at his feet. Again he threw up his hands and Enric stiffened, even though he knew it was all a performance and the flower-sprite was really Vaesha. Slowly the fog drew back from the tableau, and even the background music hushed itself in anticipation.
After a long, agonizing moment, the magician dropped his hands. The sprite raised her head, tentatively at first. Then she allowed herself to be pulled upright. Back rolled the fog, lightening to a mellow lavender, and the band swung into a lively fairy dance.
At first the magician only watched while the girl whirled around him. But slowly a smile crept over his face, and a moment later his hands began to move in time with the beat. Rainbow colors spiraled from the fog into the bleachers, and the Birimans laughed as they grasped at the swaths of brilliant light.
Now Vaesha picked up the pace, dancing faster, leaping higher, until a final huge arc took her nearly to the tent roof. The audience gasped as she hung there, twirling, her skirts fluttering prettily about her. Then she swung back toward the bleachers, actually reaching down among the whoops and waving arms as if for a volunteer to join her. Across the big top, parents hoisted their children onto their shoulders; and Enric gaped as she plucked five young Birimans from the safety of the bleachers.
Now the lot of them danced in midair, spinning up, down, left, right, like the marbles Cantonicus had juggled earlier. On the ground, the young punks Enric had noticed in the zoo tent scrabbled atop one another's backs, desperate to get in on the action. And though the werewolf felt nothing but disdain for that bunch, he couldn't help wishing he had a back to climb.
Vaesha stopped by the zoo tent later on for flirting and flattery. Enric was happy to comply, even though she'd caught him just before his visit with the wolves. But the girl, sensing, perhaps, his divided attention, quickly lost interest.
"Oh, well," she sighed, rising from her seat after only a few minutes, "time to go meet the fans."
Enric frowned. "Shouldn't everyone have left by now?"
"Well, of course. The gatekeepers run everybody off after the evening show." She flashed him a devious smile. "But I showed a couple of local boys where they could hide out in the big top, and I said I'd be back in half an hour."
"Why would you do a thing like that?" The words had burst out of him in a rush, and there was no way to call them back. Still, even as he cringed, Enric remembered how the townies had treated his animals, and he thought he had just reason for concern.
The girl, though, only laughed. "You're not jealous, are you, Enric?"
Face burning, he answered as truthfully as he could. "Maybe a little, but I'm worried about you, too. Does Cantonicus know where you're going?"
Vaesha's expression crystallized in a flash. "Does he have to?" she snapped. "I'll be twenty next month; he doesn't keep me on a curfew anymore. Besides -- " and here she softened again, chucking Enric on the chin with a fingertip, "I can handle a couple of town boys, now, can't I?"
She probably can, Enric thought, watching as she left the tent. He felt half-tempted to sneak after her, but the big top was only a dozen meters away, after all. If he heard any suspicious noises, he'd be there in seconds. I'll just have to keep my ears open, he thought, and trudged back to the wolf pen.
Wind and Whisper shared his concern, so none of the three got much sleep that night. But morning arrived without incident, and Vaesha seemed her usual perky self at breakfast. She offered Enric no details of her rendezvous, and he didn't press her -- nor did he tell Cantonicus. The magician's dark eyes and peppery scent still weighed on him, and a wolfish wariness kept him from saying any more to the man than necessary. Cantonicus was up to something; and though pride and concern for Vaesha kept Enric from running away, he wasn't about to press the issue. Let the magician make the first move; he'd be ready.
